What Have You Done To Your Merc Today?

[Craiglxviii]

Hmm, I'm not so sure. There are too many instances where there's no reason for a cover or bulb holder not to be 1 inch to the left which would make it a million times easier to get to.

To be fair the w204 isnt too bad in that respect, I have been able to get to all the bulbs to change them.

You know that I sit right next to the lighting design team for one of Europe's bigger automakers, right..? The interfaces and intrusions that every single part has to be run through pretty much predetermine where the access is placed.

Example. One well known car on our roads today should have had a sporty 4WD version. It was spoken about in hushed tones. The reason it never saw the light of day? Unexpected Violent Engine: Transmission Interface at maximum suspension deflection, by 40mm. Shame, as it would've sold well too.

There's ALWAYS a reason why something on a car is where it is and why it is the shape it is. That reason is (nowadays anyway) very little to do with awkwardness or stupidity, and almost always to do with making the part fit right, not deflect badly in the result of a crash, work the way it should and meet the cost it has to in order for the profit model to be met and the project to proceed to SOP.

 

[Craiglxviii]

I did , you didnt Craig.
10p for 2 protruding "lugs" on the holder, so one can easily twist the holder ... £0.0p to design the access hole in front of the bulb.
Come on ypur a smart guy with something to do with the industry. Justifying this kind of inexcusable design failure .. is the reason it continues.

And those two protruding lugs might very well foul another interface elsewhere in the housing. Or they can't be made in the injection moulding tool as the draw is too steep for the mould to retract away from. Or the only material that they have that has the draw factor isn't stable at the 150 C temperature the bulb holder needs to be able to keep. There are a hundred reasons why not.

It's not a design failure at all. If you want a car designed specifically to have the lamps easy to change, you'll end up with a Willys Jeep. Instead you have a car designed specifically to provide long-distance touring comfort and luxury at high sustained speed, with a big engine and a very slippery shape. And what you have is the result of one of the best design teams in the industry working for half a decade on it. That the lamps are hard to get to is because the car has a whole load of other stuff in the way, both inside and outside/ behind the lamp housings in 3 dimensions that are all there for other, equally important but different reasons.

That design team by the way has one poor little, wizened, gnome-like engineer (he has specs and a permanent squint, with a great big nose) whose sole job it is to ensure that all bulbs on the car can be changed using the car's own toolkit. It has to pass that test to be homologated into any country by the way. So it can be done, just not necessarily quickly.

 

[Craiglxviii]

Sorry Craig. But that is bollocks!

No chap it really isn't

I don't know that much about the design industry you work in.

Car designers (and a good friend of mine designs headlights for a living) are extremely clever people.

Well, SOME of them... Firstly we have to define who "they" are. Here I am talking about the automaker design engineers, these are the guys who deal with the tier 1s who make the detail designs of the lamps.

It is down to the brief they receive and nothing else. If they were told to make them consumer serviceable within the same parameters they could do and fairly easily apart from the most high end Matrix LED systems.

They don't receive a "brief" as such. What they receive is a detailed pack of information which gives, amongst other things: the power consumption parameters, the power parameters, the soak temperatures expected, the relevant design standards required for reference, the external styling surface data, the external B and C surface data, the relevant tolerance stacks, the crash displacement data, the allowable connectors to the cable harness, the positioning of the cable harnesses and much more. They also get another crucial piece of data: the BUDGET COST for the part. They cannot go over this without approval by the Project Management Committee.

Half the problem these days is lights are becoming more and more complex due to having to do things like swivel to provide illumination around corners, or various segments shut off when a car approaches from the other way.

Yes, lamps are becoming more complex. They're also moving away from "just illumination" to doing more that that; 1078P black and white movies can already be projected by full matrix LED headlamps, Osram have just achieved this. This element of functionality is market driven, customers provide surprisingly deep and meaningful feedback to carmakers mostly in the forms of "I'd love it if my car could do this!"

BUT if they were told to make them consumer serviceable then they would do.

Which is exactly what I said. The reason that they're not easily serviceable is down to a huge number of other competing factors, not least plain cost. If I could make a 5p saving on 150,00 cars right now, believe me I'd do so even if it made it more tricky for you getting your great big grubby paws in to change a lamp Serviceability is just one of the factors considered when designing a car, and bluntly it falls very far behind performance, cost ease of production, takt time in the Tier n and so on.

If you're trying to tell me that they're all so dumb that it would lead to what you've said above. Then they all need sacking!

That wasn't what I was saying though Carl. The point is that seemingly small changes can have very big and real consequences when you're talking of designs that complex. Want another one? Lifi.

The sending of data via illumination. It's a real thing, it's installed in a number of office buildings- mainly those with LED lighting, due to the precise modulation that they can achieve. Place your smartphone or tablet with its camera pointing up and it can receive all sorts of data without needing a wireless connection. Place it face down and using its flash it can make two-way communication with the building. As long as there's no line of sight that communication is completely unhackable via RF sniffers and the like. Now think of autonomous vehicles, self-driving cars that need to exchange data, and put a databurst capability into their headlamp controller. Oncoming vehicles receive it using their high speed lane departure cameras and the cars do not need to have permanent wifi link to a base station.

Now that won't make headlamps cheaper or easier to fix, by far the opposite, but it will allow the cars to do many other things much more securely.

 

[C350Carl]

Ok a few examples where that argument is flawed Craig.

The Audi A3 8P was initially designed without an access panel in the wheel arch lining to get at the headlights.

This caused a massive outrage, especially in the US, when people suddenly found it was costing them £100+ (or $ equivalent) in labour on top of the cost of a new lamp. All because some designer had followed the brief precisely.

Funnily enough 18mths later an they have a new wheelarch lining with an access panel.

As an indication of something not being thought through. You have to remove the wheel and wheel arch liner on a UK spec Mercedes 212 to change the headlamp. Yet on the American spec cars they have an access panel.

Another example. VAG again had an issue with the mechatronics unit in the DSG gearboxes. The cost to replace this is circa £1500 plus labour (requires removal of the gearbox) so you wouldn't expect change from £2k

This was a fault in the design process and acknowledged by VAG America. To the point they issued a recall, only in the US, and guaranteed the replacement part for 10yrs. VAG UK still try to charge. That is unless I know the person and I can send them armed with the VAG America recall letter. I've helped 6 people with this so far and they have all had it repaired FOC outside the warranty period of the car.

So whilst you may say there is no time limit given. Customers are going to be pretty pi55ed off if they find it takes a 'technician' 4hrs to change a headlamp!

If you are seriously trying to tell me that manufacturers don't factor servicing costs into their business model then you must be out of touch with modern car design (which I don't think you are).

They sell cars on cheaper than they would normally as they can recover costs through servicing and routine maintenance.

The only cars ever sold at a loss (currently) is the Veyron (loss of £3.5m per car) and the Chiron (loss of £4.2m per car).

The only other you could possibly say is any Saab but that is more because they haven't ever made a profit.

But in terms of cost of car when sold vs all the costs from R&D to production. Then they are the only 2.

As I have said. Designers are very clever and could do pretty much anything you ask within reason. Especially with the modern 3D printing that can be done.

 

[C350Carl]

Ok a few examples where that argument is flawed Craig.

The Audi A3 8P was initially designed without an access panel in the wheel arch lining to get at the headlights.

This caused a massive outrage, especially in the US, when people suddenly found it was costing them £100+ (or $ equivalent) in labour on top of the cost of a new lamp. All because some designer had followed the brief precisely.

Funnily enough 18mths later an they have a new wheelarch lining with an access panel.

As an indication of something not being thought through. You have to remove the wheel and wheel arch liner on a UK spec Mercedes 212 to change the headlamp. Yet on the American spec cars they have an access panel.

Another example. VAG again had an issue with the mechatronics unit in the DSG gearboxes. The cost to replace this is circa £1500 plus labour (requires removal of the gearbox) so you wouldn't expect change from £2k

This was a fault in the design process and acknowledged by VAG America. To the point they issued a recall, only in the US, and guaranteed the replacement part for 10yrs. VAG UK still try to charge. That is unless I know the person and I can send them armed with the VAG America recall letter. I've helped 6 people with this so far and they have all had it repaired FOC outside the warranty period of the car.

So whilst you may say there is no time limit given. Customers are going to be pretty pi55ed off if they find it takes a 'technician' 4hrs to change a headlamp!

If you are seriously trying to tell me that manufacturers don't factor servicing costs into their business model then you must be out of touch with modern car design (which I don't think you are).

They sell cars on cheaper than they would normally as they can recover costs through servicing and routine maintenance.

The only cars ever sold at a loss (currently) is the Veyron (loss of £3.5m per car) and the Chiron (loss of £4.2m per car).

The only other you could possibly say is any Saab but that is more because they haven't ever made a profit.

But in terms of cost of car when sold vs all the costs from R&D to production. Then they are the only 2.

As I have said. Designers are very clever and could do pretty much anything you ask within reason. Especially with the modern 3D printing that can be done.

 

[C350Carl]

Ok a few examples where that argument is flawed Craig.

The Audi A3 8P was initially designed without an access panel in the wheel arch lining to get at the headlights.

This caused a massive outrage, especially in the US, when people suddenly found it was costing them £100+ (or $ equivalent) in labour on top of the cost of a new lamp. All because some designer had followed the brief precisely.

Funnily enough 18mths later an they have a new wheelarch lining with an access panel.

As an indication of something not being thought through. You have to remove the wheel and wheel arch liner on a UK spec Mercedes 212 to change the headlamp. Yet on the American spec cars they have an access panel.

Another example. VAG again had an issue with the mechatronics unit in the DSG gearboxes. The cost to replace this is circa £1500 plus labour (requires removal of the gearbox) so you wouldn't expect change from £2k

This was a fault in the design process and acknowledged by VAG America. To the point they issued a recall, only in the US, and guaranteed the replacement part for 10yrs. VAG UK still try to charge. That is unless I know the person and I can send them armed with the VAG America recall letter. I've helped 6 people with this so far and they have all had it repaired FOC outside the warranty period of the car.

So whilst you may say there is no time limit given. Customers are going to be pretty pi55ed off if they find it takes a 'technician' 4hrs to change a headlamp!

If you are seriously trying to tell me that manufacturers don't factor servicing costs into their business model then you must be out of touch with modern car design (which I don't think you are).

They sell cars on cheaper than they would normally as they can recover costs through servicing and routine maintenance.

The only cars ever sold at a loss (currently) is the Veyron (loss of £3.5m per car) and the Chiron (loss of £4.2m per car).

The only other you could possibly say is any Saab but that is more because they haven't ever made a profit.

But in terms of cost of car when sold vs all the costs from R&D to production. Then they are the only 2.

As I have said. Designers are very clever and could do pretty much anything you ask within reason. Especially with the modern 3D printing that can be done.

 

[C350Carl]

No idea why that's posted 3 times!

Craig the friend I referred to is considered Tier 1.

His portfolio includes:

Aston One-77
Porsche 911 Turbo, S & GT3RS
McLaren P1
McLaren 570S
McLaren 720S

So I think he knows what he is talking about from a design perspective.

If he says they could do it relatively easily & within cost bar the high end lights. Then I believe him.

The point is thus. For all bar the complex lighting systems. So I'm talking bog standard halogen and Xenon there is NO reason they can't design them to be consumer serviceable.

Put this way I was able to change the lights on my Skoda Octavia which had fancy swivelling lights and my S204 (both Bi-Xenon) myself. So it can be done on modern cars if designers/manufacturers want to.

 

[Craiglxviii]

As I used to run an 8P I know exactly the issue. Firstly, cars are built in multiple locations globally. Most, by no means all but most "mainstream" cars. Or they have a local design centre whose job it is to make the car appeal more to the local market's requirements. That means that they are tailored for local conditions. For example, I have one project which is being sold into China. That variant is an X, looks smells feels and drives like an X. But it's actually a Y, built on the same line in the same plant using most of the same parts. Different car as far as the project is concerned. The China project manager has some additional budget to make "changes for local conditions" so he can make those while the original project remains unchanged in comparison.

So the 8P's front wheelhouse being changed only for America- where customers are much more likely to kick up a stink over such matters, and where VAG at that time were carefully trying to build up their profile of TDI cars (of which the A3 was flagship premium compact)- I can see it being entirely likely. These things aren't run in a vacuum. Doesn't mean that other regions would get the same treatment though.

Remember, the plant and design centre (and thus the design engineers), cost wise, are ONLY concerned with meeting the contracted budget for that project (car model) to SOP. Service costs absolutely do not come into it at all, not once, ever. The only way in which they would is through the design standards, which would give standard clearances for various work to be carried out as part of the overall "The Knowledge".

3D printing, SLA, call it what you like is an aid to rapid prototyping. It's not a replacement for investment tooling certainly at the current time, but it is immaterial to this discussion anyway

Note that none of this is down to what designers can or cannot do. It's down to how all the various design iterations fit together over the 3 or so years of detailed project work in order to make a car of the right sticker price and quality, that will appeal to the customers in the market into which it's being sold.

 

[Craiglxviii]

No idea why that's posted 3 times!

Craig the friend I referred to is considered Tier 1.

His portfolio includes:

Aston One-77
Porsche 911 Turbo, S & GT3RS
McLaren P1
McLaren 570S
McLaren 720S

So I think he knows what he is talking about from a design perspective.

If he says they could do it relatively easily & within cost bar the high end lights. Then I believe him.

The point is thus. For all bar the complex lighting systems. So I'm talking bog standard halogen and Xenon there is NO reason they can't design them to be consumer serviceable.

Put this way I was able to change the lights on my Skoda Octavia which had fancy swivelling lights and my S204 (both Bi-Xenon) myself. So it can be done on modern cars if designers/manufacturers want to.

The thing with all of this is it is model and sometimes model year specific.

I didn't say that it can't be done, I've pointed out in some significant detail why it isn't done. As a tier 1 your friend (Automotive Lighting Ltd by any chance?) will not have any data beyond the back of the lamp, so won't know the interactions. Now I've met guys on the lighting design teams of all those automakers you mentioned and they're very (scarily German-robotic) clever. If access is missing it's for a reason. Also remember that no Tier 1 ever makes any change for free, and even $0.01 would be enough to make a part go into special review.

 

[Srdl]

Perhaps we should have another thread on accessibility for bulb changing so we can concentrate on what others have done to their Mercs today?!

 

[ZZZZ]

I tried to change a bulb on my car today, but gave up, and fitted a new black bonnet badge instead

 

[John Laidlaw]

I tried to change a bulb on my car today, but gave up, and fitted a new black bonnet badge instead

Or bought a new car?

 

[ZZZZ]

Or bought a new car?

A new badge is about as close, as I can get at the moment, to buying a new car ha-ha

Looks okay though, I think - well worth the effort (relocating one pin, filling the bonnet recess with ABRO Steel, etc):

 

[John Laidlaw]

A new badge is about as close, as I can get at the moment, to buying a new car ha-ha

Looks okay though, I think - well worth the effort (relocating one pin, filling the bonnet recess with ABRO Steel, etc):

Looks very good- if I dechrome mine I might go the black badge route, but I'm staying away from too many mods for a while after the 230....make sure the 212 remains reliable first, then tweak it a bit...

 

[ZZZZ]

Looks very good- if I dechrome mine I might go the black badge route, but I'm staying away from too many mods for a while after the 230....make sure the 212 remains reliable first, then tweak it a bit...

Thanks
I'm sure it'll look great on E63 ...
Seeing as the 169 is about half the size of 212, the blue/chrome badge (of the same size) was really "sticking out" on a black car.

 

[C350Carl]

Looks very good- if I dechrome mine I might go the black badge route, but I'm staying away from too many mods for a while after the 230....make sure the 212 remains reliable first, then tweak it a bit...

You need some MTFU pills chap!

 

[John Laidlaw]

You need some MTFU pills chap!

Yeah, hell with it youre right! I'm feeling that the 557bhp isn't just quite enough of course....haha

 

[Wighty]

You need some MTFU pills chap!

Pills might be too much , maybe something on a small teaspoon

 

[Craiglxviii]

You need some MTFU pills chap!

I certainly do. This chuffing cough is doing my head in. Lost my voice twice in the last week!

 

[alexanderfoti]

Finished my eco mod (yes I am one of those crazies that bums around on the ecomodder forum trying different techniques to max fuel efficiency)



This allows me to do Pulse and Glide and Engine of coasting much easier